08/04/2024 – Old friends, young wine

We have generated some expressions of disappointment with our stay-home choices in Paris! London hasn’t broken that streak, but staying in in Gareth’s kitchen is much more sociable. We chat, meet neighbours, have a glass or three, tell war stories, make jokes, fix the world. Then, roll off to bed at hours I haven’t seen in years!

We are in London for 5 days. That short window already forced us to ignore many friends. We promise ourselves a much longer visit next year. And, our visit coincides with rail strike action and Atlantic Storm Kathleen. Nevertheless, we did manage a much-enjoyed, much-cherished afternoon with my sister and her family in Wiltshire. I snuck in both brunch and lunch with Linda. And, we spent plenty of time in Gareth’s kitchen. It’s been a big old hit of real family and found family, for which I am very grateful.

Technology offers many opportunities for maintaining relationships, and for starting, or restarting, them. This blog/FB is a great example. I have been blessed with enduring relationships, sustained across distance with technology. I have also lost many, despite the technology. It is hard to over-estimate the importance in any relationship of the shared minutiae: the local weather, the new restaurant, the traffic... It is the meat of acquaintance, which makes up such an important part of our social existence. Nothing feeds relationship like sitting together, living through the same downpour, the same roadworks. I see how Carey has thrived in the company of his family now we are Alberta-based, and how my relationship with them is growing.

Of course, sitting together can quickly end a relationship in a way a remote encounter can avoid or postpone, even indefinitely. The digital self can be curated, targeted in a way an IRL human with a cup of coffee (or a glass or wine), simply can’t. A period of purely digital interactions has done its part in my life in saving relationships experiencing rough patches, because of the discretion, breathing space that it makes available.

The digital option also offers clarification and transition. You learn about someone’s importance to you, from your own willingness to keep in touch. In the past, leaving was leaving, not so today – a cliff-edge of absence has become a process of departure.

I have also learned not to judge a change in frequency of contact as a change in affection. “Real” life can/does overwhelm and “move you on/away”. The new crowds out the old. Lives diverge. What can be shared becomes more abstract, less familiar (sometimes deeper, often just irrelevant to the now-distant person and their now-separated life). But, I have never had someone reject a reach-out, honestly and humbly made, even after years of silence – gratitude again.

So, London has been a glorious week of sloshing – sloshing back the booze, sloshing around in Storm Kathleen, sloshing down nourishing hours with some (but far from all) UK-based loved ones. We head back to Paris on Wednesday.